Bemidji/Cass Lake Muskie Inc. February Newsletter

President’s Message
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Dear Members,

I hope everybody is having a good winter. We have made some changes for 2010 that I hope will be fun and educational.

First we added a speaker meeting to our winter schedule in April and combined our awards night with the lure auction in May. Then this summer we have outing's planned each month on area lakes.

We have some new officers elected for 2010.
Kevin Cochran-Vice president
Brent Rud-Secretary
Judy Potter-Treasurer

I want to thank them for taking the job and helping the chapter go forward.

Rory Potter


Speakers
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February 17 at Cattails- Doug Shultz from the MNDNR will be speaking about the genetics and population study on Leech Lake that began in 2009 and will continue in 2010.
March 17 at Cattails– Juris Ozols, the Assistant Editor for MI magazine will be speaking about photography. Juris would like chapter members to email him photos (good and bad) for him to use in his presentation.
Cass Lake Spearing
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Many of you have heard by now, a local group has formed in the Cass Lake area who is trying to get the spearing ban lifted on Cass Lake. Cass Lake Initiative For Spearing – CLIFS. There is an informational meeting at 7:00 pm on Feb. 23 at the American Legion in Cass Lake. SF2484 was introduced by Sen. Mary Olson to remove the spearing ban on Cass Lake. Someone from our chapter will be winning a new 9 foot Tackle Industries rod just for showing up at the meeting to show support for our chapter. Show up and it could be you!
Chapter Outings

New for 2010
We will have a chapter outing each month during the musky season and the monthly meeting will take place at the landing before the outing if it is an evening outing or after the outing if it is a morning outing. I will be sending everyone more information about this when the details are finalized but here is the schedule of dates and lakes to put on your calendar. Exact hours have not been decided yet so if you have an opinion, please let me know soon.

June 19 – Chapter Tourney
July 21 – Plantagenet
August 18 Cass Lake
September 18 – Mantrap
October 17 – Little Wolf
November 14 – Bemidji

Anyone can come and fish our chapter outings but we will be keeping score for chapter members. Each member fishing an outing will receive a point, points will be awarded for fish caught, the netman will get a point for each fish they net, and additional points will be awarded to the winner of the outing. At the end of the season, there will be prizes awarded at the Christmas party in December.

The September outing on Mantrap is scheduled to be a competition between the Bemidji/Cass Lake Chapter and the Brainerd Lakes Chapter so hopefully we will have a good showing and out fish our neighbors to the south.



Chapter Schedule
Feb: 17 Speaker Doug Schultz Mn DNR 7pm at Cattails Bar & Grill
Mar: 3 Business Mtg 7pm – Gander Mt.
17 speaker Juris Ozols 7pm at Cattails Bar & Grill
Apr: 7 Business Mtg. 7pm – Gander Mt.
9,10&11 MN Muskie Expo
10 Spring Int'l Board Meting
21 Speaker T.B.A. 7pm - Cattails
May: 2 Ditch Cleaning 1pm at Teals
5 Business Mtg.
19 Chapter Awards & Lure Auction
June: 2 Business Mtg.
5 Muskie Opener
19 Tournament

Business
If you are interested in becoming more involved in the chapter, please come to one of our business meetings. They are held at Gander Mountain, the first Wednesday of each month at 6:45pm. We really could use the help!

We are trying to save some time and money, and send out the newsletter by email to as many people as possible. If you do not already get it through email send me your address to: brerud@gmail.com, and I will add you to the email list. We will still send out paper copies to those of you who don’t have email, but we are trying to get away from that as much a possible.

See you at the meeting!


Brent Rud – brerud@gmail.com